Consultancy firms turned out to be the biggest recruiters at IIM Bangalore, accounting for 37% of the total placements for the batch of 2008. McKinsey alone hired 15 students, the most by any company.

Other consultancy firms that hired in big numbers were Boston Consulting Group (11 students), Bain & Co (6 ), AT Kearney (6) and Oliver Wyman (4 ). Last year, around 30% of the class had joined consultancy firms. IIM-B, however, refused to divulge details of the salary packages these firms offered.

Almost 21% of the batch opted for investment banks like Lehman Brothers (11), Merrill Lynch (6) and Barclays Capital (4 ). According to IIM-B placement chairperson Sourav Mukherji, this year there has been a drop in the number of offers that I-banks made due to global recession but this was compensated by the increase in the number of such companies that came on campus.

However, despite the increase in the number of I-banks, the total number of students joining them fell to 52 this year against 61 last year. Mr Mukherji said a number of students rejected offers made by I- banks to join consultancy firms.

Finance (19%), IT (6%) and marketing 7 (%) were the other sectors that emerged favourites with students. According to Mr Mukherji, student focus on sectors like real estate and entertainment was also high this year.

Placements at IIM-B started on March 4 and Slot Zero, which is the first two days of placements when the most preferred companies make their offers, saw more than half the batch of 256 students getting placed with 133 students accepting offers.

This is the first time such a large number has been placed in Slot Zero. Last year, 96 students had been placed in the first two days. The whole batch was placed on day one of Slot Two, which is the fastest ever final placement process.

Lateral placements, made to students with work experience, and pre-placement offers, made on the basis of summer internships, were also a big hit with students. While nearly 50% of the 75 lateral offers were accepted this year, 69 students accepted pre-placement offers, out of the 103 total PPOs that were made.

This was also the first year that companies like Blackstone Group, Oliver Wyman and ING Asia Pacific visited the campus. Blackstone Group has recruited one from IIM-B for its real estate fund, the only one it hired from B-schools in Asia this year.

Of the total batch, 25% of the students accepted foreign placements in locations such as London, New York, Shanghai, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Florida and Dubai. Last year, around 30% of the batch had accepted overseas offers. Four students decided to opt out of placements to start their own ventures.